staircase.
On his way to Jack’s ducal apartment, he decided it would take more than the half an hour he had to make himself fit to join the ladies and gentlemen gathered here for dinner tonight. He had a villainous growth of beard and a pressing need to feel properly clean again before he met anyone’s critical gaze, let alone finicky Miss Persephone Seaborne’s perceptive green-grey eyes and sceptical smile.
‘Good evening, Lord Calvercombe, how lovely to be granted this chance to furtherour acquaintance after all,’ Persephone heard her third cousin, Corisande Beddington, murmur in a husky tone that she probably imagined was seductive and mysterious as soon as the Earl of Calvercombe stepped into the smaller drawing room where the family and their few stubborn remaining guests were gathered tonight.
‘Good evening, Mrs Beddington,’ he responded with a lift of one dark-as-midnight eyebrow that ought to tell Corisande he knew what she was after and wasn’t planning to be used or trapped by a harpy.
Persephone managed not to bestow a smug smile and stop-trespassing look on her lovely cousin, but couldn’t help keeping an eye on them both. His lordship met it with a challenge, once he had brushed past clinging Corisande with a swiftness that made the family seductress pout and saunter towards one of Jack’s middle-aged neighbours with a swing of her hips supposed to make the Earl of Calvercombe regret dismissing an experienced bedmate like her, when he had little prospect of slaking his manly needs with any other member of this very respectable house party. Unfortunately for Corisande, Lord Calvercombe didn’t look in the leastbit sorry to escape that invitation and concentrated on greeting his hostess and avoiding the tête-à-tête both cousins were eager to force, for very different reasons.
‘Did you find out anything useful?’ Persephone managed to murmur as softly as she could under the polite hum of conversation in the ducal drawing room, once she finally managed to manoeuvre herself a few seconds’ privacy with him.
‘Nothing but a rumour I can’t pin down,’ he admitted in a similarly intimate tone, but Persephone doubted Corisande would envy her quite so bitterly if she knew that they were discussing Marcus and not making shady assignations.
She met her distant cousin’s hard-eyed glare with what she hoped was a look of bland indifference, but knew she had finally made an enemy after years of skating round the edges of outright dislike blazing between them. Trying to regret the vague possibility of friendship with a woman with whom she had nothing in common, she turned her back on her cousin and met his lordship’s knowing look. Nothing about that silent falling-out had escaped him.
‘Would you like me to flirt with her andcast you in the shade? It would be pure pretence, as I disliked the obvious even before I learned to distrust it, but it might make her feel a little better disposed towards you,’ he offered and surprised a genuine smile out of her that probably made Corisande all the more determined to hate her for being younger, better dowered and closer to the heart of the powerful Seaborne family than she would ever be.
‘No, thank you. Not only would it raise her hopes unnecessarily if you truly feel nothing, but poor Lord Ambleby would feel doubly rejected, since her flattery seems to be going some way to mending his broken heart,’ she said, careless of the private affairs of others for once.
She realised what she had done as soon as she saw comprehension dawn in the far-too-intelligent Earl of Calvercombe’s eyes and gave him an imploring look.
‘It was indiscreet as well as unkind of me to speak of such private matters. I would be grateful if you could forget I ever mentioned it,’ she added quietly.
‘I will in a while, but I’m not surprised to hear he’s put his fortune to the test,’ Alex replied with a cynical smile that told her therewas no point trying to
On his way to Jack’s ducal apartment, he decided it would take more than the half an hour he had to make himself fit to join the ladies and gentlemen gathered here for dinner tonight. He had a villainous growth of beard and a pressing need to feel properly clean again before he met anyone’s critical gaze, let alone finicky Miss Persephone Seaborne’s perceptive green-grey eyes and sceptical smile.
‘Good evening, Lord Calvercombe, how lovely to be granted this chance to furtherour acquaintance after all,’ Persephone heard her third cousin, Corisande Beddington, murmur in a husky tone that she probably imagined was seductive and mysterious as soon as the Earl of Calvercombe stepped into the smaller drawing room where the family and their few stubborn remaining guests were gathered tonight.
‘Good evening, Mrs Beddington,’ he responded with a lift of one dark-as-midnight eyebrow that ought to tell Corisande he knew what she was after and wasn’t planning to be used or trapped by a harpy.
Persephone managed not to bestow a smug smile and stop-trespassing look on her lovely cousin, but couldn’t help keeping an eye on them both. His lordship met it with a challenge, once he had brushed past clinging Corisande with a swiftness that made the family seductress pout and saunter towards one of Jack’s middle-aged neighbours with a swing of her hips supposed to make the Earl of Calvercombe regret dismissing an experienced bedmate like her, when he had little prospect of slaking his manly needs with any other member of this very respectable house party. Unfortunately for Corisande, Lord Calvercombe didn’t look in the leastbit sorry to escape that invitation and concentrated on greeting his hostess and avoiding the tête-à-tête both cousins were eager to force, for very different reasons.
‘Did you find out anything useful?’ Persephone managed to murmur as softly as she could under the polite hum of conversation in the ducal drawing room, once she finally managed to manoeuvre herself a few seconds’ privacy with him.
‘Nothing but a rumour I can’t pin down,’ he admitted in a similarly intimate tone, but Persephone doubted Corisande would envy her quite so bitterly if she knew that they were discussing Marcus and not making shady assignations.
She met her distant cousin’s hard-eyed glare with what she hoped was a look of bland indifference, but knew she had finally made an enemy after years of skating round the edges of outright dislike blazing between them. Trying to regret the vague possibility of friendship with a woman with whom she had nothing in common, she turned her back on her cousin and met his lordship’s knowing look. Nothing about that silent falling-out had escaped him.
‘Would you like me to flirt with her andcast you in the shade? It would be pure pretence, as I disliked the obvious even before I learned to distrust it, but it might make her feel a little better disposed towards you,’ he offered and surprised a genuine smile out of her that probably made Corisande all the more determined to hate her for being younger, better dowered and closer to the heart of the powerful Seaborne family than she would ever be.
‘No, thank you. Not only would it raise her hopes unnecessarily if you truly feel nothing, but poor Lord Ambleby would feel doubly rejected, since her flattery seems to be going some way to mending his broken heart,’ she said, careless of the private affairs of others for once.
She realised what she had done as soon as she saw comprehension dawn in the far-too-intelligent Earl of Calvercombe’s eyes and gave him an imploring look.
‘It was indiscreet as well as unkind of me to speak of such private matters. I would be grateful if you could forget I ever mentioned it,’ she added quietly.
‘I will in a while, but I’m not surprised to hear he’s put his fortune to the test,’ Alex replied with a cynical smile that told her therewas no point trying to
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